Dead Beat Part 9

Her straight shoulders seemed to sag and she stood back from the door. It opened straight on to her living room, and I sat down before she could change her mind. Behind me, Maggie closed the door firmly and went through to the kitchen. I could hear the sound of a kettle being filled. I took the chance to take stock of the room. It was large, occupying most of the ground floor of the house. One of the alcoves by the chimney breast held an a.s.sortment of books, from science fiction to sociology texts. The other held a small TV and a stereo system with a collection of tapes, CDs and LPs. The only decoration on the walls was a large reproduction of Klimt's Judith. The room contained two sofas and, in the bay, a small pine dining table with four chairs. It looked like home, but only one person's idea of it.

She came through with a pot of tea on a tray with two mugs, a bottle of milk and a bowl of sugar. 'I've got this terrible thirst. I can't seem to stop drinking tea,' she said absently as she poured. Her hair looked dishevelled, as did the sweats.h.i.+rt and jeans she was wearing. The room was unbearably warm, the gas fire on full, yet Maggie s.h.i.+vered as she lifted her mug to her lips.

'I'm sorry,' I said, knowing how hollow it would sound, but feeling the need nevertheless. 'I hardly knew her, but I liked what I did know.'

Maggie walked over to the window and stared out at the silent rain falling on the grey roofs. 'Let's get one thing straight, Kate,' she observed. 'I am not going to discuss my feelings with you. I have friends for that. I'll tell you anything I can about what happened after she left with you that night, but our feelings for each other and the way I feel right now is nothing to do with you.'

'That's fine by me,' I said, feeling like I'd been reprieved. After Jett's histrionics, I didn't know how much more I could take.

She turned back into the room and sat on the other sofa, as far from me as it was possible to be. 'I suppose Jett's hired you to discover I did it?' she challenged.

'I'm working for Jett, but he hasn't pointed the finger at anyone. I think he's still too upset to have given it much thought. It was him who found the body, you know.'

'I didn't know,' she sighed. 'You should never have tried to find her. If Jett had let the past rest in peace, she'd still be here now.'

I couldn't deny it. And I saw no point in trying to justify my own part in the process. 'Suppose we go back to the beginning and work forward?' I asked. 'What happened after I took her over to see Jett?'

Maggie sighed again. She pulled a small tin out of her pocket and with trembling fingers rolled a cigarette. 'She rang the morning after. She said that she and Jett had had a long talk.' A half-smile flickered across her lips as she went on. 'She'd learned the hard way not to take any prisoners. She went in there with an agenda, and she wasn't prepared to make any compromises. She said she'd work with him on the songs for his new alb.u.m, and if that worked out, then she'd consider future collaborations. But that was it. No going back to their old relations.h.i.+p. She wanted a room of her own, all the back royalties that were due to her, and a new deal for the new alb.u.m. She wanted a percentage share of the profits as well as her songwriting royalties. After all, he'd be doing well out of it too.' Maggie paused, looking to me for a response.

'It doesn't sound unreasonable to me. I'd guess that Jett could afford it,' I agreed.

'Jett was over the moon, according to Moira. He said she'd have to work out the money details with Kevin, but it was fine by him. She was laughing, you know? She said he'd got into all this New Age stuff, and kept telling her they were soul mates and must be together. She'd told him that only extended to work and he could forget s.e.x. Then he went all huffy and started on about spiritual love. She was very funny about it all.' Memories overwhelmed Maggie suddenly and she looked away.

Awkwardly, I said, 'I liked her sense of humour, too. Maggie, did she say anything about the reactions of the others at the manor to her arrival?'

Maggie relit her cigarette and took a deep drag. 'Not then. But she had plenty to say later. Only Neil seemed really pleased that she was there. He seemed to think she'd be able to fill in any gaps from the early days. I know he talked to her about what it was like before Jett hit the big time. She said Gloria was always trying to bust up their conversations. She wanted to come across as the only significant person in Jett's life. Pathetic, really.

'Tamar hated her on sight, of course. Her and Jett have been having this on-off relations.h.i.+p for a few months now, and I guess she saw Moira as a threat. Moira couldn't stand her, thought she was just a stupid bimbo, and she told me she used to wind her up by flirting with Jett when Tamar was around. But there was nothing in it. She told me that, and I believe her. I trust...' she gulped. 'I trusted her.'

'What about Kevin? How did he take it?' I probed.

'She said he wasn't thrilled, but that she wasn't surprised because the idea of parting with any money, even if it's not his own, gives him a physical pain. She said if he gave you his s.h.i.+t for fertilizer he'd want the roses. And there was a lot of money coming to her. All those years of royalties from the first three alb.u.ms.'

'Did she get the money?' I suspected I knew the answer before I asked the question.

'Not yet. Kevin said it was tied up in some account where he had to wait three months before he could get access to it.'

I'd been right. Moira had died before she'd cost anyone a penny. I wondered if anyone would ever be able to untangle things now she was dead. 'Do you happen to know if she left a will?' I asked.

Maggie's mouth twisted into an ironic smile. 'Jett tell you to ask that? Yes, she left a will. We both made wills in favour of each other about two months ago.'

'Do you mind if I ask you why?'

'Because a friend of mine was killed in a car crash and she hadn't left a will. The house was in her name, and her family kicked her lover out on the street the day before the funeral. Gay couples don't have any rights. We have to make our own. That's why we made the wills. At that point, Moira didn't even think she had anything to leave,' Maggie said bitterly.

But when she'd died, it had been a different picture. I knew I'd want to come back to this, but I needed to hear more from other people before I'd have any useful leverage. So I changed the subject. 'Surely Micky was pleased? He must have been happy that they were all working together again, just like the good old days?'

'You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? But not according to Moira. She said he was always nit-picking. She thought he wanted to take all the credit for Jett's great comeback alb.u.m-they hadn't worked together for the last four, you see.'

'I'm beginning to wonder why she stuck it,' I remarked.

'I wondered myself. But she really enjoyed the work she was doing with Jett. She loved the writing. And she was even doing some of the backing vocals. She kept telling me that when the money came rolling in, I could give up work and we'd go and live in the sun somewhere.' Maggie's face crumpled and she pulled a soggy handkerchief out of her pocket. She blew her nose. 'If she hadn't been doing it for us, maybe she'd never have been tempted to stay.'

'Had you seen her much in the last few weeks?' I asked.

'Not really. She hasn't been home at all. We had a couple of weekends in a hotel in Manchester. Jett had gone to Paris with Tamar, and he'd given her some money and told her to show me a good time.' Her eyes lit up, then the light died. 'We had a good time, too,' she said softly.

'Why did you go to Colcutt this week?' I asked.

She looked at me in surprise. 'What do you mean?'

'I saw you. I was driving the car that nearly ran you over in the early hours of the morning. The landlady at the Colcutt Arms told me you'd been staying there. I just wondered, you know? With you two not having seen very much of each other lately.' I let my words hang in the air. Maggie was no fool. She must have realized it would only be a matter of time before the police would be at her door.

'Now I see why you wanted to talk to me,' she accused. 'You really are trying to pin it on me.'

I shook my head. 'Maggie, I'm not trying to pin it on anybody. I'm trying to find Moira's killer.'

'If that's true, you'd be better off back in Colcutt,' she said angrily. 'Someone there had it in for her. That's why I went over to see her, to try to persuade her to come home with me.'

'What do you mean?' I asked. My antennae were quivering. I had the feeling we were really getting somewhere at last.

'Someone there wanted her dead. They'd already tried once.'

17.

I took a deep breath and said very slowly, 'What do you mean, they'd already tried?'

'I don't know how much you know about heroin addiction,' Maggie replied.

'Lay person's knowledge only. a.s.sume I'm ignorant.'

'OK. Coming off is h.e.l.l. But once an addict is off, they often get a strange kind of confidence that one little hit wouldn't do any harm. Like the smoker who's been stopped for three years and fancies a f.a.g at a party. Only with heroin addicts, that can be fatal a lot faster than with smokers. Anyway, someone at Colcutt Manor kept leaving a set of works in Moira's room. Every couple of days, she'd come upstairs to find a nice little hit sitting there waiting for her.' Maggie stopped dead, her anger making her voice a growl.

'That is evil,' I breathed.

'So now you see why I wanted her to leave. So far, she'd just flushed the smack down the loo and shoved the syringes in the bin. But sooner or later there was going to come a time when she'd be low, when she couldn't ring me up for rea.s.surance, when she was going to go for it. I couldn't stand the thought of it.'

I swallowed hard. Now for the nasty question. 'So why did you leave when you did? In the middle of the night like that?'

Maggie rolled another cigarette while she pondered my question. I couldn't help feeling she was using me as the rehearsal for the harder interrogation she knew was on the horizon. 'We'd had a drink together that evening in the pub. Moira promised me that her work would be over in another two weeks and then we'd go on holiday together. She said she could hold out, and begged me not to make her choose. I gave in, G.o.d help me.

'Afterwards, we went up to my room and made love. She left about eleven, saying she was going back to work with Jett. I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I know it sounds pathetic, but I had a dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach that something terrible was going to happen. Eventually, I got up and went for a walk. Then I saw all those police cars up at the manor and I panicked. Whatever was going on, I knew I would only be in Moira's way if I turned up on the doorstep, so I went back to the pub. That's when you nearly ran me over.' Maggie lit her cigarette and ran a hand through her greying curls.

'I tried to ring from the phone in the pub, but it was constantly engaged. I didn't know what else to do, so I set off for home. Moira knew I was coming home today, and I knew she'd call me as soon as she could. The first I knew she was dead was when I heard the news on Radio One at half-past nine.' She couldn't hold the tears back any longer, and they streamed down her face. Her shoulders shook.

I got up and tentatively put a hand on her arm, but she shook me off and huddled into a ball. Feeling helpless, I retreated to the sofa. While I waited for her to compose herself, I thought about what I'd heard. It sounded incredibly thin to me. I couldn't imagine any circ.u.mstances in which I'd behave as Maggie had done unless I was running from something. But equally, I couldn't see why she'd have killed Moira if she was telling the truth about their relations.h.i.+p.

After a few minutes, Maggie managed to find the strength from somewhere to dry her tears, clear her throat and look me in the eye. 'I didn't kill her. I'd have cheerfully killed the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who was trying to destroy her with the smack, but not Moira. Never Moira.'

Her denial was vehement. But I've heard good performances before. I didn't have enough information to try to get beyond that right now, but if I uncovered it, I'd be back. This was one case where I couldn't let sentiment get in the way. 'I believe you,' I said, almost convinced. 'Is there anything else, however trivial, that Moira said that might shed some light on what happened?'

Maggie got up and poured herself another mug of tea. She leaned against the table, eyebrows twisted in concentration. 'There was one thing,' she said uncertainly.

'Yes?' I asked expectantly.

'It's probably nothing, but last night in the pub, she asked me about one of the guys she used to know in Bradford. A bloke called Fat Freddy. She wanted me to ask around and see what he was into just now that might be connected to Jett in some way,' Maggie said hesitantly.

'Did she say why?'

Maggie shrugged. 'To be honest, I wasn't paying a lot of attention. She said something like, she'd seen him talking to someone from the manor who shouldn't be mixing with small-time villains like Fat Freddy.'

The whiff of red herring was getting pretty strong. If I'd been trying to divert suspicion away from myself, that was exactly the kind of unprovable line I'd come up with.

'Did she say who it was she'd seen with this Fat Freddy?' I asked cautiously.

Maggie shook her head. 'I'm sorry, she didn't. She said she wanted to find out what the connection was before she said anything more.'

I felt frustrated. Why couldn't Maggie have shown a bit more interest in something other than her own relations.h.i.+p with Moira? Had she no natural curiosity? If I'd dropped something like that on Richard, he'd have been on it like a rat up a drain, demanding chapter and verse on everything I'd seen and heard. 'What do you know about Fat Freddy?' I asked without much hope.

'He's a bit of a wide-boy. Moira knew him from when she was working in Bradford. She told me he was into buying and selling-whatever came along. I met him once. Moira bought a couple of jogging suits from him.'

'Would you know where to find him?'

Maggie pulled a face. 'Not really. Why? Do you think it might be important?'

'Yes, I do. I don't know how yet, but it could be.'

'OK. I'll see if I can find out what he's up to and get in touch with you. It's what Moira asked me to do.'

I tried not to show my surprise at her co-operation, and fished a card out of my wallet. I wrote my home number on the back. 'If you remember anything more or come up with something on Fat Freddy, give me a call any time, day or night.' I got to my feet. 'Thanks for being so helpful. I know it can't have been easy.'

'Believe me, the worst is yet to come. And I'm not talking about the police.' Maggie's face had frozen into a cold mask. 'There's no framework for grief when you're gay.'

'I'm sorry,' I said inadequately.

'Spare me the bleeding-heart liberal s.h.i.+t,' Maggie flashed back, suddenly angry. 'Just leave me alone.'

It wasn't hard to do exactly as she asked.

I spent what was left of the afternoon back at the office. I'd recorded my notes on tape on the way back from Leeds, so I didn't even have that to keep me occupied. I hate those spells in an investigation where everything is stalled. I didn't want to go back to the manor for another confrontation with Jackson. I'd rather wait till tomorrow, when the police presence would have eased off, and the initial shock would have worn off for the inhabitants.

So I did the paperwork on the Smart brothers that had been hanging over me for the last couple of weeks since our clients had pa.s.sed our dossier on to the police. I was providing them with more details on my surveillance, so they'd be fully prepared for the raid they were planning for some unspecified date in the future when they got their act together. I ploughed through my diary for the relevant weeks, and there, in the middle of it all, I found the notes of my search for Moira. I couldn't help agreeing with Maggie that it was a pity I'd ever found her. Bill had been right. Missing persons' jobs produce more trouble than they're worth.

Before I left the office, I helped myself to a couple of Raymond Chandlers and a Das.h.i.+ell Hammett from Bill's bookcase. I was going to need all the help I could get, and somehow I had the feeling that wandering down to Waterstone's for a book on how to solve a murder wasn't going to be a lot of use.

I got home just after six. For once, my heart sank when I saw Richard's car outside the house. I wasn't looking forward to telling him about the secrets I'd been keeping. But I couldn't hide my involvement in the murder investigation, not without moving out while it went on. There would be too many incoming phone calls and answering-machine messages from people connected to the case.

I decided to get it over with as quickly as possible, so I poured myself a drink and crossed the conservatory. Halfway across, Jett's first alb.u.m hit me right between the ears. Richard's living room was empty, so I followed the music down to his study. He was so absorbed in the screen of his word processor that he didn't hear me enter.

Over his shoulder, I read, 'Moira got her second chance at the dream ticket just six weeks ago when she turned up at Jett's luxury mansion, a world away from the mean streets where they started off.' I don't know, even the journalists I trust can't get their facts right.

I tapped him gently on the shoulder and he glanced up at me with a distracted smile. 'Hiya, Brannigan.'

I leaned over and kissed him. 'Busy?'

'Ten minutes. You hear about Moira Pollock?' I nodded. 'I'm doing a piece for the Sunday Tribune-you know, wringing their withers, lots of colour, plenty of topspin. Be right with you.'

I left him to it. True to his word, ten minutes later he joined me in the conservatory, where I was watching the rain on the gla.s.s making rivers against the darkness. Richard threw himself into a basket chair and popped the top of a Michelob Dry.

'I have a confession to make,' I announced.

Richard's eyebrows rose and he gave me his cute smile. 'You wore the same clothes two days running? You forgot to hoover the lounge before you went out this morning? You ate a yoghurt that was two days past its sell-by date?'

I don't know who told him he was funny. It certainly wasn't me. 'This is serious,' I explained.

'Oh, s.h.i.+t! You left a ring round the bath!' he teased.

Sometimes I wish I lived with a grown-up.

'Moira Pollock didn't just turn up on Jett's doorstep out of the blue,' I announced bluntly. It was the only way to get his attention.

'How d'you know that?' he demanded, suddenly serious now his professional world was involved.

'Because it was me who drove her there.'

I had the momentary satisfaction of seeing his jaw drop. 'You what?' he exclaimed.

'I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you about it at the time. Jett swore me to secrecy, with particular reference to you. He hired us to find Moira for him. So I did. And now he's hired me to find Moira's killer.'